


Operation SHEBA

by butterflyslinky



Series: Mrs. America [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Always Female Bucky, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Engagement, F/M, Genderbending, Minor Character Death, Past Rape/Non-con, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-18
Updated: 2014-09-25
Packaged: 2018-02-17 21:33:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 8
Words: 15,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2323874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butterflyslinky/pseuds/butterflyslinky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Becky Barnes was always meant to marry Steve Rogers. Unfortunately, the war got in the way. Steve spent seventy years on ice, Becky spent seventy years as HYDRA's greatest weapon. But now they're together again, and searching for information on a mission Becky remembers but never completed, a mission known only as Operation SHEBA.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Shattered Memories

**Author's Note:**

> This was written as an AU wherein Bucky was born female. I wanted to call her “Becky” and I didn’t want her first name to be Jamie, so after some thought, the name I got was “Rebecca Jane Barnes.” I was unaware that there is a character named Rebecca Barnes when I started, and when I learned that character exists, I was already six chapters in. So you can either think of this as an AU where Bucky is female, or an AU where Bucky never existed and Rebecca became the Winter Soldier. (I did check the Marvel wiki and found very little info on the Rebecca Barnes character, other than she died at birth in the mainstream universe, so I don’t feel bad about possibly getting her wrong.) I’m sorry that I was unaware of this character before I started, but there are thousands of characters in the Marvel universe and really, if I could name every single one of them, my life would be a lot sadder than it already is. Thank you.

Her face was just as he remembered it.

Okay, it was a bit thinner. Her hair was longer and her eyes were deeper, but otherwise, she was still Becky. She was still the girl that Steve Rogers had fallen in love with the moment he met her.

It had taken months to find her, chasing her around the world and back, but at last he had managed to catch up with her. She had been frightened, and in the last seventy years, she had been taught to kill when afraid, so it took quite a lot of effort to get her to calm down. Once she had, though, Steve and Sam had brought her home to Brooklyn, where she now sat curled in an armchair in Steve’s tiny apartment, staring at Steve with wide, frightened eyes, trying to remember who he was.

Who she was.

They had been sitting there for over an hour. At first the minutes had crawled by silently, but then the silence got to him and he began to speak, telling Becky everything he remembered about her, which was everything she had been.

“Your name is Rebecca Jane Barnes, but you never liked being called Rebecca. You thought it was too long and old, so we all called you Becky. You grew up in Brooklyn. You were a nurse, and you went to war.” He swallowed heavily. “You were…you were engaged to me. Everyone said you could do better, but for some stupid reason, you chose me.”

Her eyes flickered when he said that, but she didn’t speak.

But she remembered.

*

Becky Barnes was always destined to marry Steve Rogers.

That was the fact of the matter and it had been since they were thirteen years old, when Mrs. Rogers looked at her and said, “Rebecca Jane Barnes, if you’re going to marry my boy, you’d better learn how to take care of him.”

So Becky did just that. She hung around as often as she could while Mrs. Rogers explained the various things to do if Steve was ever hurt or sick. She stayed with Steve during the days he was too ill to move and his mother had to work. She learned to fight, so when bullies picked on him, she could defend him. They would have teased him about being defended by a girl, but then they’d have to admit that same girl could beat the crap out of them without even taking off her shoes. She learned to shoot a gun, so that she could defend their home and soon became the best shot in Brooklyn. Then two years later, she was accepted into a program and became a nurse, more than qualified to look after her frail but adorable beau. And when Mrs. Rogers passed on, Becky was right there to pick up the slack.

But just after Steve had officially proposed to her, his mother’s ring securely on her finger, the war started.

He went to enlist immediately and was rejected just as quickly. Becky was relieved. She couldn’t be certain of much in life, but she could always be certain of him. But then he tried again and again, rejected every time for all of his health issues, ranging from his asthma to his partial deafness, and it was all Becky could do not to slap some sense into him.

Then the hospital she worked in got a letter, telling any nurses without families that they were being recruited to go to the front.

Becky swallowed when she was informed. Her first thought was who was going to look after Steve, but she quickly banished that question from her mind. Steve had done everything he could to go to Europe. How could she tell him she didn’t want to go help the soldiers out fighting the war?

So she accepted the summons. If nothing else, the pay was a bit better, so maybe Steve would be able to afford the medicine he so desperately needed without her having to wheedle it out of the doctors.

They were leaving in two weeks. Two weeks to make arrangements, pack up, and go to Europe, to take care of the men fighting there while surviving the war themselves. 

Steve nodded stoically when Becky explained the situation to him. “Least one of us is being useful,” he muttered.

“You can be useful here,” Becky argued, already sensing Steve’s resentment toward his own body.

“What, with my little red wagon collecting scrap?” Steve asked.

“Get a job in the office! Sell war bonds! Anything!” Becky was doing her best not to show him how much this was costing her. “It’s not just about the soldiers, Steve.”

“People are dying,” he said. “Men are dying out there, and I’m not one of them.”

She couldn’t argue with that. Instead she just forced herself to smile for him. “Look…I gotta do this. I’m sorry I have to go. Just…don’t find anyone prettier than me while I’m out there.”

He smiled back and kissed her. “How can I?” he asked. “You’re taking all the pretty with you.”

*

“You were always stronger than I was,” Steve said. “You were stubborn, too. And you were the best shot in Brooklyn when we were kids.” He smiled wryly. “You would never stand down.”

Her lips moved as she began to speak, her voice low and wrecked, but still hers. “They told me to go back to the hospital,” she whispered. “To stay out of the way…but they needed a good shooter.”

*

The Germans attacked only a month into her tour of duty.

The nurses were told to stay back, not to interfere, but Becky couldn’t. As soon as the other girls were distracted with preparing for casualties, Becky dashed out the door, dashing to the munitions tent to grab a rifle before dashing out to the field.

She took the best vantage point she could, trying to stay out of sight since her white dress would attract attention, and started firing. She didn’t know how many Germans she downed, but she knew she hit some.  
And a strong arm grabbed her from behind, wrenching the rifle out of her hands and dragging her away.

At first she thought it was one of the American soldiers, trying to save a poor little girl, and she started fighting, kicking and shouting, “Let me go! I can shoot better than half you assholes!”

Whoever was holding her laughed and said something in German before she felt a blow to her head and blacked out.

When she woke up, she was strapped to a lab table.

*

“I don’t know what Zola did to you there,” Steve said quietly. “I only know when I found you…you were so small…so tired. I was afraid you’d lost your mind.”

“I hadn’t,” she said, sitting up a bit straighter. “He was…he was experimenting with the serum…and he picked me to take it because…because he liked my spirit. My determination. And…” She stopped, curling in on herself again. “And…I was the only girl, so…”

Steve’s breath hitched. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I didn’t realize…”

She curled back up, her eyes closing as tears slipped down her cheeks.

*

Steve found her three days later, and she thought she was hallucinating, because her fiancé wasn’t that strong, was he?

But then he stroked her forehead and whispered softly that he was there and that he loved her, and she knew it was him. He helped her up and supported her out of the room.

She didn’t remember too much of the rest of it, but she remembered the Red Skull, standing across the way from them. She remembered when he peeled his mask back.

She didn’t scream like a lot of girls and even men would have, but she did clutch at Steve’s jacket. “You don’t have one of those, do you?” she asked. Not that she would love him less if he did, but she wanted to be sure that Steve hadn’t burned that badly.

Steve only shook his head and exchanged some banter with him before the Red Skull fled, leaving them to get across the burning chasm. Steve lifted Becky up on the beam first. “Go on,” he said.

Her uniform was shredded, her shoes and stockings long gone. The metal beam burned her feet as she walked across it, the sweat pouring down her legs and body, but she made it across. But as she lifted herself up, the beam fell, leaving her and Steve at opposite ends. “Steve!” she screamed.

“Go!” he yelled back. “I’ll catch up!”

“I’m not leaving you again!” she shouted. She looked around desperately, hoping there was a rope or something she could throw to him.

“Stand back!” he called.

She turned back around and saw what he meant to do. “You’ll never make it!”

“I will, Becky, I promise! Now stand back!”

She did, backing into the wall to give him room. He backed up as well and took a running leap across the chasm.

*

“Do you remember what I told you once we got out of there?” Steve asked. “While I was bandaging your feet so you could walk back to base?”

Becky nodded shakily. “You…you said that I was brave…that I was the best soldier there was, man or woman…that when the war was over, you were going to buy us a big house and we’d have six kids and a dog.” She smiled faintly. “It sounded nice, didn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Steve said. “It sounded nice…but not cause of the American Dream or any of that. Because…because the war being over meant you wouldn’t get hurt that badly again.”

*

They went to a bar back in London, where Steve was meeting with the team he wanted to go into battle with him.

She went as well, dressed in a man’s uniform so she wouldn’t be harassed. Not that anyone would touch her with Steve there, but she didn’t want to be bothered by anyone else. She had always been rather large for a girl, with small breasts and hips, so she passed for a young man easily enough.

She regretted it when Peggy Carter came in, in her pretty red dress with her perfectly permed hair.

Steve talked to her nicely, smiling in that way that had always made Becky weak at the knees, and for the first time, Becky felt jealousy flare up in her. Hadn’t she always been there for him? Hadn’t she realized how handsome and kind and loving he was before the serum? Hadn’t she taken care of him, fed him, pilfered medicine from the hospital for him? What did this woman have that she didn’t?

As soon as Peggy was gone, she turned to Steve, forcing a smile on her face. “She was pretty,” Becky said casually.

Steve looked at her. “Really?” he asked. “I didn’t notice.”

“Steve…”

“Really,” he said. “After all, I’m here with the prettiest girl in London.”

Becky softened a bit, but she wasn’t done. “I’m going with you,” she declared. 

“Becky…”

“Don’t. I’m the best shooter you know and I’m not going to be away from you.”

“They won’t let you.”

“You don’t have to tell them who I am.”

“I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I don’t want any of you to get hurt, but if you do, I know how to take care of you.”

He sighed. It was impossible to argue with her. “Fine,” he said. “You can follow Captain America.”

She shook her head. “No,” she said. “I’m following the beautiful little boy from Brooklyn.”

*

“You did love Peggy Carter,” Becky said suddenly, opening her eyes and staring at Steve.

He looked down, ashamed. “I…I guess I did,” he admitted. “But she wasn’t…she wasn’t you. I loved her, but I didn’t want her the same way…not really.” He looked up and met Becky’s eyes. The girl didn’t look angry, or hurt. She wore the same blank expression she usually did. “It was only after…after you fell that I even considered anything with Peggy. And even then, it was probably because of grief.”

*

They made a good team, Steve and Becky and the Howling Commandos. They could go out, destroy a HYDRA base, down 300 Nazis, and be home in time for breakfast on a good day, and even on the bad days, they got things done.

Becky loved it. She loved being in the action, helping Steve fight the bad guys, using her skills as both a shooter and a nurse to make sure all the men were safe. She remembered shooting HYDRA agents that Steve hadn’t even seen and smiling down at him when he looked to see where the shot had come from. She remembered the glow in his eyes whenever they reconvened.

It was a bit awkward, being the only girl on the field, but Steve did everything in his power to ensure that she was safe and had her space. The other members of the Howling Commandos didn’t object or try anything. Indeed, they all treated her like and older sister, and Becky was grateful to all of them.

And when they were preparing to capture Dr. Zola, she was the first to volunteer to go down, though not without a bit of ribbing.

“Remember when you took me to Coney Island?” she asked, looking at the zipline. “And I made you go on the Cyclone?”

“And I threw up?” Steve asked, smiling at her.

“This isn’t your revenge, is it?” she asked.

“Would I do that to you?”

She took a deep breath. “Yes,” she said.

He lightly punched her shoulder. He could do that, they always had done that, as though Becky were just one of the boys, but now it hurt a little bit more. She didn’t mind. She didn’t want him to treat her any differently now that he was a supersoldier. “Get down there, Sergeant,” he told her.

She breathed again and went down.

He followed.

They fought.

She hit the guards that came at her, and when she lost her gun, she fought with her fists. She wasn’t as powerful as Steve, but she held her own.

His shield came to her at one point. She wasn’t sure if it was an accident or not, but she picked it up anyway.

They got to the carriage with Dr. Zola.

Then they were knocked out the door, over the cliff. Steve caught himself on the doorway, but Becky only managed to catch a piece of dangling rope.

“Becky!” he screamed, reaching out to her.

She knew she couldn’t hold on. She knew he couldn’t reach her.

“Steve,” she whispered. “Steve…I’m sorry.”

“Hold on, Becky!” He was trying to get to her, trying to catch her.

“I love you,” she whispered. Then the rope broke and she fell.

*

“I lost your ring,” she said. “Well…your mother’s ring…when I fell…I’m so sorry…”

Steve shook his head. “That’s not important,” he said gently. “Do you know what happened then?” 

Becky stared at him for a long time before slowly shaking her head. “Not now,” she said. “Right now, I’m Becky. I can only remember being Becky.” She stared at him for a long time, not really seeing him. “Some days, I’m the Winter Soldier. But I’m the Winter Soldier from different times, with different missions in my head and different people giving me orders and information. I don’t know which memory goes where, or which missions I’ve already finished, or which people are still alive…” She broke off. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Steve hesitated, then went to her, carefully reaching out to run a hand through her hair. She flinched and he drew back, but then she nodded and he did it again. This time, she leaned into his touch.

“I don’t know, either,” he said. “I just know that we’re together, and that I love you.” He swallowed heavily. “As to what we’re doing…I think right now, we just have to wait and see.”


	2. New Mission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Becky remembers a word and she and Steve prepare for a mission.

She eventually fell asleep in the armchair, curled up like a cat, her metal arm shining brightly. Steve watched her for a while to ensure she wouldn’t wake up before grabbing a blanket off the couch and throwing it over her, wrapping her up so she would be warm. She had been cold for long enough.

He sighed and ran his fingers through her hair again before standing up and retreating to his own room.

He was woken only a few hours later by a high, keening wail from the living room and he was immediately up, not even bothering to pull on a shirt before he dashed back out to her.

She had fallen off the chair and was now lying on the floor, whimpering and thrashing. Steve went to her, kneeling and holding her down to prevent her from hurting herself. “Becky!” he called. “Becky, wake up!”

Her eyes snapped open as she screamed out a word. “SHEBA!”

“Becky!” Steve said firmly.

She stared at him, her eyes unfocused for a moment before recognition dawned in them. “Steve,” she whimpered, sitting up to lean on his chest. “Steve, I’m sorry…”

“Don’t be sorry,” Steve murmured. “It’s okay… it was just a nightmare.” He stroked her hair. “It’s okay now. You’re safe.”

“They hurt me,” she whispered. “They trained me… made me… I’m so sorry, Steve, I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t say no, I couldn’t tell them not to…”

Steve had to force down his anger. He understood what she was saying, what had been done to her, but he wasn’t going to speak of it right now. “It’s not your fault,” he said. “None of it was your fault.”

“I tried to kill you,” she said. “They told me to kill you and I almost did.”

“It wasn’t you.”

She kept crying, curling in on him and clutching him around the neck. “I didn’t want any of it,” she sobbed.

Steve nodded. He hesitated a moment before asking, “Can you tell me what SHEBA is?”

Becky looked at him, fear and confusion in her eyes. “I don’t know,” she said. “I never knew the details…” Her forehead wrinkled in concentration. “It was…the primary mission. The most important one…at least, that’s what they said, but they never gave me any details.” She swallowed. “When they…when they made me submit to them…they said it was training for SHEBA, when it was put into effect. But I didn’t understand…I don’t understand what it was.”

Steve nodded. “Okay,” he said. “I can probably find out.” He glanced at the clock. “We both need to sleep.”

She clutched at him tighter. “Don’t leave me,” she begged. “Don’t leave me out here alone.”

“Okay,” he said.

She was easy to carry, in spite of the muscle she had gained. Steve took her into the bedroom and laid her down. She looked at him with pleading in her eyes, but he hesitated. “I…I should probably sleep on the floor,” he said. “I don’t want you to think…”

“I know better,” she said. “I know you won’t hurt me.” She bit her lip. “And…you were going to marry me, right?”

“Of course,” he said. 

“Then it’s okay to sleep by me,” she said.

He hesitated another moment before sliding into the bed beside her. She smiled slightly before she turned her back to him, pressing her back to his chest. He carefully wrapped his arms around her and heard her sigh contentedly. “Good night, Steve,” she said.

“Good night, Becky,” he replied.

*

Steve woke before Becky the next morning, and for a moment, he wondered if everything had been a horrible dream. If they had survived the war and gotten married and lived out their lives in the 1940s like they were supposed to.

But no, he knew that wasn’t the case. He felt the metal arm curled around his and the long black hair tangled in his face and he knew that it was real, that they were still living in a strange place and time with too many questions. But it was nice, for a few minutes, to lie there with her in his arms and pretend that everything had gone according to plan.

Eventually, he had to get up. He managed to wriggle out of bed without disturbing her and head into the living room to grab his laptop. As soon as it opened, he opened the SHIELD database and typed “SHEBA” into the search bar.

He waited as it searched all the files. Steve breathed shallowly, almost afraid of what he would find, but he had to know. Finally, just as he closed his eyes again, the computer beeped to signal that the search was finished. Steve opened his eyes and simply saw a red box.

NO RESULTS FOUND FOR “SHEBA.”

Steve frowned and typed in another spelling. Same message.

Within fifteen minutes, Steve had tried every possible spelling of “SHEBA” and had found nothing. Frustrated, he slammed the laptop shut and grabbed his phone.

Natasha picked up on the first ring. Of course she did. No one ignored calls from Captain America.

“What’s the sitch?” she asked.

“The what?” Steve asked.

“The sitch. The situation,” she explained. “It’s from a TV show.”

“Right,” Steve said. “We brought Becky home.”

Natasha was quiet for a moment. “I see,” she finally said. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Steve said. “I’m okay. I’m not sure about her, though. She…she’s remembering how it was before, but she can’t remember everything about the Winter Soldier. Which is why I’m calling you.”

“Why would I know anything about that?”

“Not about the Winter Soldier, necessarily.” Steve took a deep breath. “She had a nightmare last night. And when she woke up, she screamed out ‘SHEBA.’ When I asked, she said it was a mission she was training for, but I didn’t find anything about it in the database. Any idea what she was talking about?”

There was a pause on the other end of the line. “No,” Natasha finally replied. “But if it’s not in the computer, it’s probably something really old that was either completed or abandoned, so it’s probably not anything dangerous now, so if you ask Nick about it, he’ll probably tell you…provided he knows, of course. If it was something that only HYDRA was doing, there may not be any information readily available on it.”

“Right,” Steve muttered. “Do you have Nick’s current number?”

“No,” Natasha said. “But I’m guessing he’s monitoring this conversation, so he’ll probably call you back within the hour.”

“Okay,” Steve said. He glanced at the clock. “I’d better go, then. I don’t want Becky to wake up alone and think I abandoned her.”

“You slept together?” Natasha sounded far too interested.

“Not like that!” Steve snapped defensively. “She just…she wanted to be with me.” He could feel himself blushing. “I mean…we were engaged before the war. She remembers that. She probably just wanted someone familiar…”

“You don’t have to explain it to me,” Natasha said, and Steve could hear her amusement. “I’ll stop keeping a list of potential dates for you.”

“Thanks, Natasha,” Steve said before quickly hanging up the phone and returning to the bedroom, where Becky was just starting to stir.

He sat down on the edge of the bed as she suddenly sat up, looking around wildly. “Hey,” he said. “Hey, it’s okay.” He reached out and took her hand.

Her breathing slowed immediately. “Oh, thank God,” she muttered. “I thought you’d left.”

“No,” he said. “I just needed to make a phone call.” He smiled at her, rubbing his thumb over his hand. “Do you want some breakfast?” he asked gently.

She hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “That…that would be nice,” she said. She glanced down at herself as if trying to think. “Um…I should probably wash…do you have anything clean I could wear?”

Steve started, then nodded. “Yeah,” he said, going to his dresser. He pulled out a sweater and the smallest pair of jeans he had. “Try these for now and we can go shopping later…or if you don’t want to go out, I can have Natasha bring something for you…”

She ignored him, merely accepting the clothes and going into the bathroom to shower.

Half an hour later, the two of them were sitting down to breakfast. Becky wasn’t drowning in Steve’s clothes, exactly, though they were still very loose on her. Her hair was still damp and her eyes were still very wide as Steve set a plate of eggs and muffins in front of her. She looked rather like a drowned cat, if Steve was honest with himself, and she ate faster than was strictly necessary. “Easy,” Steve said. “You’ll make yourself sick.”

She gave him a glare, but she did slow down a bit. Steve mentally scolded himself for not realizing that she had been living rough for the last few months and that she would be hungry. He watched as she quickly devoured what he had given her before she looked down, too scared to ask for more.

He got up and made more for her. She would have whatever she wanted, as much as she wanted. Steve wouldn’t let her ever be unhappy again.

Once they were done, Steve studied Becky carefully. She sat perfectly still, as though afraid he would hurt her if she fidgeted too much. “We really should go shopping for you,” Steve said. “Or I could go if I could just get your measurements.”

“No,” she said instantly. “I’ll come. I want to come…I shouldn’t stay in, I’d probably end up breaking all your walls.”

“You sure?” he asked. “It’s going to be loud, and crowded.”

“I can’t stay hidden forever,” she said. “Better to get it over with so we can live…normally.”

“Okay,” Steve said. “We can do that.”

*

His phone rang while they were in the middle of a large department store. It wasn’t as crowded as Steve had feared, being the middle of a work day, but there were still enough people around that he had to hold Becky’s hand everywhere except the fitting rooms. He could tell she was tense, her eyes darting around constantly for assassins and spies. They were dressed in civilian clothes, Becky in long sleeves and gloves, Steve with his plastic frame glasses and baseball cap so the trip wouldn’t turn into a media frenzy. He knew Becky couldn’t handle that right now.

The only person she had spoken to so far was a friendly saleswoman who came over and took her measurements before recommending some things to try. Becky looked uncertain about the short tops and tight jeans she was given, but she went to try them on anyway, not willing to ask for other options. Steve was waiting for her when he got the call. The ID said “Caller Unknown” and he answered immediately. “Natasha told you?” he asked.

“More like she was right about me,” Fury answered. “But I wanted to look through everything before I gave you an answer for sure.”

“What did you find?”

“Not much. SHEBA wasn’t something I was involved in, so it must have been a HYDRA project. Only place I found it referenced was in a log of old missions. The file on it isn’t here. I’m not certain where it is now, but when it was referenced, the numbers indicated it was somewhere in Estonia.” He paused. “I can’t be running around right now…too much going on, too many people trying to find me. So I’m putting you on the case…you and Sergeant Barnes…if she’s up to it.

“Yeah,” Steve said. “Yeah, we’ll go.” He smiled at Becky as she stepped out of the changing room in a new outfit. “We need to do this ourselves, Nick.”

“Okay,” Fury said. “But don’t go off somewhere I can’t find you. Let me know where you are in case you need rescuing.”

“You got it,” Steve said, and he hung up. “Do you like it?” he asked Becky.

She shifted uncomfortably in the skinny jeans and tight shirt. “It’s confining,” she said. “But too revealing…if that makes sense?”

“Perfectly,” Steve said. “But I don’t think you’re going to find anything better from women’s clothes.”

Becky sighed. “Why not?” she asked moodily. “Do they think women don’t do anything? Are they still stuck in the mindset that girls belong in the kitchen making no difference in the world? Jesus Christ, Steve, I grew up with that mindset and I’m more progressive than this!”

Steve grinned. “You’re right,” he said. “Might be better off in the men’s section. Or the thrift store, if you want your old dresses back.”

“Fuck dresses,” Becky said. “I haven’t worn a dress in seventy goddamned years and I’m not going to start now.” She stomped back into the changing room. “Let’s look at men’s clothes,” she called to him.

Steve didn’t argue with her, though the saleswoman was obviously shocked when Becky asked for men’s clothes. “But you have such a lovely figure!” the saleswoman said. “Don’t you want to show it off?”

Becky’s eyes flashed and Steve knew she was one second away from strangling the saleswoman with her metal hand. Steve quickly grabbed that hand and gave the saleswoman his best Captain America smile. “She’s not comfortable in revealing clothes,” he said calmly. “We were raised in a very modest setting.”

The saleswoman still looked a bit reluctant, but she took them to the other section, where Becky had much better luck. Half an hour later, in spite of the saleswoman’s disapproving looks, they left the store with several pairs of jeans and a number of shirts for Becky, along with one dress that Steve had convinced Becky to buy. “Tony Stark likes to throw social events,” he explained. “And he expects the Avengers to show up for PR reasons.”

“I’m not an Avenger,” Becky said.

“No, but I’m sick of Tony having a prettier date than me,” Steve said, to which Becky acquiesced and bought the damn thing.

*

When they got home, Steve was a bit surprised, but not terribly shocked to find Sam and Natasha both sitting in the kitchen as though they lived there, dinner already in the oven. Becky immediately reached for her gun on seeing them, but Steve caught her hand. “It’s okay, they’re friends,” he said quietly before turning to his unexpected guests. “What brings you two here?”

“I’m checking in on Sergeant Barnes,” Sam said. “As a VA counselor. I know she hasn’t officially gone in, but it’s still my job.”

“I’m here to get the details on the mission you called about this morning,” Natasha said.

Becky raised her eyebrows. “Mission?” she repeated.

“Finding out about SHEBA,” Steve explained. He looked at her anxiously. “You don’t have to…”

“No,” Becky said. “I want to know. I’m coming along...if the VA counselor lets me.”

“That’s why I’m checking up on you,” Sam said. “And if these two crazy soldiers are going, you can bet I’ll be there as well.”

Becky sighed. “Fine,” she muttered. She sounded like a sullen teenager. Steve frowned at her, but didn’t object.

Natasha looked at her sympathetically and said something in Russian. Becky softened visibly and responded, sitting down across from the other woman. They continued discussing whatever it was while Sam and Steve just shrugged.

Dinner wasn’t as tense as Steve had feared, though about halfway through, Sam asked if there was any information on SHEBA at all.

Becky looked at the table for a moment before answering. “They always said it was what they were training me for,” she said. “When…when they…” Her voice broke off and Steve put an arm around her comfortingly. Becky took a breath and continued. “They also said they needed to capture Captain America…but I don’t know what they meant by any of it.”

Sam looked at her with so much sympathy that it almost hurt. “Know where we’re going yet?” he asked Steve.

“Fury did call,” Steve said. “And he did some digging. Only clue he could find pointed him to Estonia, so that’s where we’re going as soon as we can make arrangements.”

“So first thing in the morning,” Natasha said. “I’ll call Stark tonight and we’ll borrow a jet from him.”

Becky pushed away from the table. “I’m going to pack, then,” she said, and then was gone. Steve moved to follow her, but Natasha shook her head.

“Give her some time, Steve,” she said.

Steve looked at her. “Is she okay?” he asked quietly.

“Of course she isn’t,” Sam said. “She’s spent the last seventy years being abused, experimented on, forced to kill innocent people, raped, and then brainwashed so they could do it again. She’s not going to be okay for a very, very long time.” He looked at Steve seriously. “Are you sure about going on this quest to find SHEBA?”

Steve looked puzzled. “Of course I am,” he said. “She wants to know what it was, and so do I.”

“It’s just…” Sam took a breath. “I’m wondering if it’s real or not.”

“Real?” Steve repeated. “Are you saying she was lying about all of that? That they didn’t…hurt her that way?”

“Oh, no,” Sam said quickly. “I believe that happened. No, it’s SHEBA I’m questioning.”

“Why wouldn’t it be real?” Steve asked.

“Well,” Sam said. “Assuming that she’s really reformed and come out of her brainwashing—don’t give me that look, it’s a valid suspicion!—that doesn’t mean SHEBA was real. It could have been a mission that the HYDRA agents made up to justify their actions to her so she wouldn’t kill them when they touched her. Or she could have made it up as a coping mechanism to deal with all the abuse she was going through and forgotten what she meant for it to mean. Either way, she’s telling what she believes is the truth but we’re preparing to go off on a wild goose chase.”

Natasha nodded. “It’s likely,” she agreed. “I don’t think she’s lying at all, but the fact that there’s no information in the database is concerning.”

“We still have to investigate,” Steve said. “If only to put her mind at ease. Besides, Fury found it mentioned, so it must exist.”

“You want us to fly around the world to put her mind at ease?” Sam said. “Just how important is she to you?”

Steve glared at him. “We were engaged, if you must know,” he said. “I’ve been in love with her since I was a kid. And then I had to watch her die, only to discover she was still alive and had been through all of that. So yes, I am flying around the world to help her. If you don’t want to come, that’s your choice.”

“We’re coming,” Natasha said. “We just wanted you to know from the start—don’t be too upset if we don’t find anything.”

Steve sighed. “I know,” he said quietly. “Whether it was real or not, I know there’s a good chance we’ll never find out what it was and I’ll spend the rest of my life chasing a mystery that can’t be solved. I know that, even if we did find out what it was, it’s likely to hurt her even more and I’ll spend my whole life dealing with it. I know that we’re not going to get the happily ever after we were promised before the war. We’re never going to have a perfectly normal life, and she may not ever be happy. But if I can do anything to help her move past those days, I’ll do it, even if I never have a moment’s rest again.”

Natasha nodded. “And I’ll be there,” she said. “However long it takes.”

“So will I,” said Sam.

“Thank you,” Steve said quietly before he got up. “Becky’s right, we need to pack,” he said, and went back to the bedroom.


	3. Running from My Nightmares

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the team reaches their first destination and Becky remembers things she'd rather forget.

They were up early the next morning, well on their way to Estonia. Becky was curled up in her seat again, watching the other three suspiciously. Any attempts to engage her in conversation were thoroughly ignored.

Steve sat next to her, not speaking, but she did occasionally allow him to run a hand through her hair. Sam seemed rather perturbed by her and kept glancing at her nervously, as though afraid she would suddenly snap and turn back into the Winter Soldier, but Natasha merely seemed bored.

A few hours of uncomfortable silence later, Natasha got up and pulled a folder out of her bag. “Right,” she said. “I’m going to give you all instructions now so we can stop acting like we’re at a funeral.” She sat down across from Steve and passed him a bundle of papers. “You’re going to the address at the top of the page. There’s a room reserved for a Mr. Roger Grant and his wife Jamie, from Boston. You’re an adventurous but stupid young couple on vacation.”

Steve looked at the papers, which contained IDs for him and Becky. “Roger Grant?” he said. “That was the best you could come up with?”

Natasha gave him a look. “I wanted something you could remember,” she said. “And it’s obvious enough that they wouldn’t expect it. Besides, I doubt we’re going to be in Estonia for too long—they usually move HYDRA papers every six months and we’re years behind that file.”

Becky looked at the ID Steve handed her. “His wife Jamie,” she muttered.

“Easier if you’re married,” Natasha said. “Though…I don’t have a ring.”

“I don’t want any rings,” Becky said. “I’m more worried about hiding the arm.”

“I do have a heavy parka,” Natasha said. “And thick gloves. You should be okay as long as you don’t leave your room too often.”

“Wasn’t planning to,” Becky said. She then added something in Russian that Steve didn’t quite catch but that made Natasha laugh. Steve and Sam exchanged a look.

“You’ll be here,” Natasha said to Sam. “It’s a little ways away from the Grants, but not too far in case you need to get to each other. Your name is William Fall.”

“Got it,” Sam said. “And where are you going?”

“Somewhere else,” Natasha said. “And I’m not telling you where in case they find you.”

“What, so we can lose Captain America, but not the Black Widow?” Sam asked.

“Captain America is with the world’s greatest assassin,” Natasha said. “I think he’ll be okay.”

“Nice to know you two have so much confidence in me,” Steve grumbled.\

“Cheer up,” Becky said. “At least our hotel is relatively nice…who’s paying for it?”

“The Avengers’ common fund,” Natasha said. “Meaning Tony. But he doesn’t know yet, and I doubt he’ll notice.”

Steve gave her a look. “Haven’t I lectured you on stealing money from Tony?”

“He won’t miss it.” Natasha reverted back to mission-mode. “Anyway, act like normal tourists for a day or two, then on day three, we’ll meet here…” She passed them each a business card for some sort of doctor. “And we’ll go to the HYDRA base and investigate. I assume Sergeant Barnes knows where it is.”

“Yes,” Becky said. “I know where it is.”

“Good.” Natasha checked her watch. “Settle in. Twelve more hours.”

*

It was easy enough to find the hotel, even easier to just walk in. The civilian clothes Natasha had chosen were different from what they were used to, and Becky was obviously uncomfortable in the woman’s jeans and coat Natasha had talked her into, but they still looked normal enough.

As they approached the desk, Steve glanced at Becky, hoping that she could talk to the receptionist since his Russian was shaky at best. But she shook her head, so Steve figured it was up to him to try and get keys. Then he realized that they were supposed to be normal American tourists, so shaky Russian with scattered English would probably be best.

“Um…reservation for Grant?” he said, making his American accent as thick as he could.

The receptionist smiled. “We have,” she said. “Room 108…let see…” She clicked around on her computer. “Here is keys.” She handed Steve two keys. “Enjoy stay.”

“Thanks,” Steve said, and Becky smiled brainlessly. It was amazing how good she was at doing that.

They headed to the room. As soon as the door closed behind them, Becky deadbolted it before throwing off the parka. “Honestly,” she muttered. “As if playing a dumb but sweet tourist wasn’t bad enough, she had to dress me in pink?”

“Well, they won’t expect it,” Steve said. “And you only have to wear it while we’re outside.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Becky said. “Check the room for bugs.”

They did, searching every inch and corner of the room, using every piece of sweeper tech they had brought with them. After an hour, they found nothing. “We’re safe,” Steve declared. “If we were followed, they won’t make their move for a while.”

“Right,” Becky said. “So now what?”

“Now, we order room service and see if we can get TV in English,” Steve said. “Unless you want to translate for me.”

She shook her head. “There’s a reason I didn’t talk to the receptionist,” she said. “You hear a lot more when people think you can’t understand them.”

“Right,” Steve said. “Room service.”

*

_“Rebecca Jane Barnes.” Bright light. Faces all around. “Red Cross nurse, Howling Commando…and now ours.” Pain in her left shoulder. Piercing, burning pain. “But soon, you will be more. You will be the Mother of the 21st century.”_

_Zola. She tried to scream, but she couldn’t. She started to struggle, finding herself tied to a table again, knowing what he was about to do to her, but the straps were too tight. Desperately, she tried to remember what had happened…_

_Steve. The train. The rope. She had fallen, down and down…how had she survived?_

_“It seems my serum was a success. A fall like that would kill any ordinary woman.” His smirk grew. “But you are far from ordinary.”_

_Tears started to run down her face, but she forced herself to think of Steve, only of Steve. He would come save her again, she knew he would. He would always come for her, always help her…_

_“And just as soon as we find Captain America, your mission will begin,” Zola continued. “But for now, I need to try something.”_

_“NO!” Becky screamed. She had superserum. It had worked. She pulled hard at the straps around her wrists…her right wrist. Her left seemed to be missing…_

_She looked down and to see a huge chunk of silver metal in place of it. Fine. New arm. She could deal with that._

_She pulled again and the straps broke. She immediately hit the nearest person to her and started working to get her legs free._

_“Oh, dear,” Zola said. “Seems the conditioning didn’t take. Well, then. We’ll have to begin again with something stronger.”_

_Several large men hurried toward her. She fought, but they finally managed to pin her down again. She felt certain that if she’d had use of her legs, she could have won._

_They injected her with something and she stopped moving._

_“Thank you,” Zola said. “But for now, Nurse Barnes and I need to be alone so I can…work on her.”_

_Her eyes squeezed shut. Steve. Steve. Steve…_

“STEVE!”

He sat up immediately. “What is it? What’s wrong?” He reached over and turned on the light. Becky was curled on the bed, her arms over her head, whimpering slightly. “Becky?” He reached out tentatively. “What happened?”

She looked up at him, her eyes full of tears. “You never came,” she whispered. “Every time I woke up, I expected you to be there…I thought you were coming…but you never did…every time they…when I was…when it happened…I always thought you would come in and save me…”

His heart broke, looking at her and hearing her say it. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so, so sorry…if I had had any inkling that you were alive…that you were waiting…I would have come. But…I didn’t know. None of us knew, we didn’t find you…I had them searching for weeks and weeks but there was no sign. No body. And then I went down in that plane…I didn’t have a good reason to keep living.” He pulled her into his arms. “I’m so sorry, Becky. I didn’t…I wasn’t strong enough to save you.”

“I wasn’t strong enough to save myself,” she said. “I just kept waiting and hoping…for seventy goddamn years…when I could remember, of course. They made it so I didn’t know who I was, who you were…anything except the mission, whatever that was, and the trigger commands. That’s why I remember SHEBA. It was what they would say when they did that... ‘Operation SHEBA is go.’ Then I was programmed to just lie down and take it.”

Steve clutched at her more tightly. “Oh, Becky,” he murmured. “I wish…I wish I could take that away…that you wouldn’t have to remember anymore.”

“But I do,” she said. “I do and you can’t change that. Even with their mind wiping device, it wouldn’t be very long before I’d start to come out of it. You know what the serum does. It didn’t only strengthen our bodies…it strengthened our minds…it was incredible that they even managed to wipe me as well as they did. That’s why they kept me on ice most of the time.”

Steve nodded. “I know,” he said. “Look…when we get back to New York, there are people who can help you. Sam…well, he can help with the war stuff, anyway. And I think there are support groups for…for survivors like you.”

She lay on his chest and Steve could feel tears on his bare skin. “I don’t think there are too many survivors like me,” she said. “But thank you.”

*

The next two days were spent alternating wandering the streets pretending to look lost, or hidden in their room making plans. Steve wasn’t sure exactly what they would be up against once they got to the HYDRA base, but Becky said they should probably expect at least one guard who hadn’t gotten the memo about being shut down.

On the appointed day at the appointed time, they wandered over to the office Natasha had directed them to. Steve spotted Sam quickly, trying to look casual, but Natasha was nowhere to be seen. This wasn’t surprising. Natasha would make her presence known when she wanted to.

They pretended to be lost for a bit, looking over their map and arguing in exaggerated tones for a bit before they finally wandered over to Sam. “Uh…speak English?” Steve asked.

“Yeah,” Sam said. “What can I help you with?”

“We’re trying to get here…” Steve pointed to a random spot on the map. “But we’re a bit lost. Um…”

“Let’s see…” Same pretended to look at the map. “Yeah, you wanna go here, here here…” He started tracing his hand in random directions. “Cross at the stoplight, duck under two awnings, look in the third story window and that should be it.”

Steve glanced up surreptitiously. Sure enough, Natasha was standing in the window of the third floor of the building, wearing her grey hoodie and looking very, very bored. She nodded slowly when she saw Steve.

“Um…” Steve said, still playing dumb.

“Know what, why don’t I just take you there?” Sam asked. “I’m not doing anything and I can’t let a fellow American be this lost.”

“Oh, would you?” Becky asked, playing as dumb and sweet as ever. Steve was reminded of the times when they were kids and Becky would make fun of the other nurses she worked with. “My husband is a bit dense and doesn’t know left from right.”

“Sure thing, little lady,” Sam said, and Steve knew that Becky would definitely punch one of them later. “Right this way.”

They started walking down the street, making small talk. Steve glanced up again, but Natasha was gone…no, she had just come down to the street.

After that, Becky guided them. Not that she ever said a word, but she and Steve had worked out a way of communicating without words long ago. Two squeezes to his hand meant turn right. Three meant left. Four meant danger.

Sam didn’t question any of it, merely walked with them. And even though he only caught fleeting glimpses of her, Steve was certain Natasha was doing the same.

They left the city and continued walking. As soon as they were a good distance away, in a field, Becky stopped. Natasha caught up a moment later.

“Don’t think we were followed,” Natasha said. “Where to next?”

“North,” Becky said. “Not too far.”

They headed that way, quietly now. Steve was suddenly aware of how ridiculous they all looked in civilian clothing that was picked to least match their personalities, but he supposed that was a good thing, though why four random tourists would be wandering around the Estonian countryside was beyond explanation.

But at last, Becky pointed out a small building up ahead. “There,” she said. “That’s it…or at least, that’s what my brain is telling me.”

“So what’s the plan?” Steve asked. “Scan for guards, knock out any we find, then root through papers until we find something?”

“Pretty much,” Natasha said. “Unless you have a better way to go about this?”

“Do we have to leave them alive?” Becky asked.

“Yes,” the other three said at once.

“We may have to question them later,” Natasha added.

That seemed to be enough, because Becky raised no further objections. They walked to the building, but with purpose now, looking less like civilians and more like undercover agents. Natasha darted ahead of them with a heat sensor and scanned through the windows. There was no sign of life inside and she nodded at the others to come over.

Becky knocked down the door with her metal hand and stepped inside. It looked much like any other abandoned secret building, dark and dusty, with broken equipment and mouse-eaten papers everywhere. Sam immediately went for a light switch. The bare bulb flickered for a moment before lighting the room dimly. Becky and Natasha produced their guns and Steve pulled out a flashlight.

“Well, this isn’t creepy at all,” Sam commented. “Did you bring your shield?”

“And where exactly would I hide that while playing a dumbass tourist?” Steve asked. “Start looking through the papers. If it says ‘SHEBA’ anywhere on it, keep it. Otherwise, just toss it aside.”

They went to work immediately. Unfortunately, most of the papers were in Russian, so Steve and Sam were soon lost. It was obvious that SHIELD had come in at least once and already searched the place for hidden cameras and weapons, but the papers had apparently been deemed unimportant and left to rot here.

“What does SHEBA look like in Russian?” Sam finally asked.

“This,” Becky said. She showed them a paper. “Only one I’ve found so far. Says the file was moved to Berlin…dated 1967.”

“Well, that’s not going to be hard to find information on,” Natasha muttered. “But keep looking. We don’t want to miss anything because we rushed off to Berlin at the first sign. We might have to come back here eventually.”

Now knowing what word to look for, Sam and Steve joined the search, though it didn’t go much better with their help. Two hours later, they had checked every page twice, and had only found a few others that referenced SHEBA, but no information on what it was.

Becky sighed in frustration. “It’s all just ‘see Operation SHEBA’ stuff,” she grumbled. “They talk about taking over the world, but they just say ‘after SHEBA’ or ‘with the SHEBA program’ or other vague things like that.”

“So we go to Berlin,” Steve said. “And we keep looking there.”


	4. Zola's Whore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the clues lead them all over the world and Becky is angry again.

Berlin led them to Rio. Rio led them to Auckland. Auckland pointed them to Quebec, then to Manchester, then to Warsaw, and on and on and on.

Occasionally, there would be a guard or agent at whatever base they found, but when questioned, none of them knew about SHEBA—or at least, they didn’t tell, even after Becky and Natasha used every interrogation technique that Steve would allow. So they were stuck relying on the paper files, chasing the plan all over the globe.

It wasn’t easy. Becky seemed to be getting better the longer she was with them, but she was far from well. She still woke up almost every night, either screaming and crying and begging to be held, or attempting to strangle Steve, not knowing who or where she was, only that she had a mission. Steve mentioned it to Sam once, who said that was perfectly normal for war veterans and he would ensure Becky got a prescription for it once they got back to New York.

Still, they were making progress, or at least, Steve kept telling himself that they were. They hadn’t found any real clues, but they kept moving, and Natasha said that they had to find it eventually…unless it had been destroyed. Which was unfortunately all too likely.

It wasn’t until the clues had led them to Bangkok that Steve realized that they were indeed being followed. He couldn’t see their pursuers, but he had a feeling that they were being watched as he and Becky wandered through the marketplace. He didn’t say anything or make any move except to squeeze her hand to convey the danger.

She didn’t acknowledge it, but he could see that she had tensed slightly. “I’m going to text Tanya,” he said, remembering the name Natasha was using right then. “And see if she’d like this scarf.” He quickly sent a message to Natasha, merely saying “Keep a close eye.”

“We should get back,” Becky muttered. “I need a nap.”

Steve nodded and they wandered back to their hotel. Steve kept trying to find whoever was following them, but he didn’t manage to spot them in the crowds.

Becky did. She nodded once to tell Steve that she had, but they kept walking normally. Steve wasn’t sure if the person following them was a friend or an enemy, but he didn’t want to hang around the find out.  
They got back to the hotel and headed up to their room. As soon as the door closed, Steve looked to Becky.

“He’s right outside,” she said. “He didn’t come in, but he’s probably looking up at the windows.”

Steve moved to the window and looked down. “Tall, wearing black?” he asked.

“That’s him,” she said. “He’s been following us all day.”

“HYDRA?”

“Possibly. I’d have to get closer to find out.”

“Probably better not to get too close.”

“We need him to follow us,” Becky said, pulling her gun out to make sure it was fully loaded. “We’ll go to the base, we need to search it anyway. Call Sam and Natasha and have them follow us as well. Maybe we can capture him.”

“Right.” Steve called Sam quickly and told him the situation.

“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” Sam said quietly. Natasha said the same thing.

Steve hung up and glanced outside again. The man was still lounging, looking normal but very conspicuous now that they were onto him. They waited a few more minutes before Steve spotted Sam out the window, looking just as conspicuously casual as their pursuer, and Natasha, wandering around looking lost.

“Ready to go?”

Becky finished reloading her gun. “Always.”

They went out again, still looking like a normal couple on vacation. As they headed down the street, Steve said, “You know, once this is over, we should actually take a vacation.”

“You always wanted to,” Becky said. “Always said that one day we’d have the money, and we’d go everywhere, whenever we wanted. And you’d sell your art, and I’d study all their cultures and histories…” She smiled slightly. “We’ve done it.”

“Yeah,” Steve said. “We’ve seen the world together.” He held her hand even better. “So no matter what happens next, I’m happy.”

She hesitated, then leaned in and kissed him gently. “Now I’m happy,” she said.

They were silent as they walked to a small shop. Becky led Steve inside and to the back, where there were tables set up. She pressed a button concealed in one and the back wall slid away.

She led him down the small, dark hallway, going down. Eventually, they reached another dark room, similar to every other HYDRA facility they had been to so far, with papers and equipment everywhere.

“Be ready to fight,” Steve muttered. “In case Sam and Natasha don’t catch up in time.”

Becky pulled out her gun and they both took a defensive position, waiting for their pursuer.

The man came down the hall a few minutes later and stopped in the doorway. “So here you are,” he said. “Captain America and Zola’s whore.”

Becky was across the room in an instant, her metal hand on the man’s throat and her gun at his temple. “SHEBA,” she said. “Tell me about it.”

He laughed. “Oh, little nurse. As if SHEBA was the most important thing for you to find.”

Her grip tightened. “Tell me and I’ll make your death painless,” she hissed.

“Becky,” Steve said warningly.

“SHEBA failed,” the man said. “It is no longer relevant.”

“Well, then, you shouldn’t have a problem telling us where or what it was,” Becky said.

“What do you care? You know you enjoyed it.”

Becky’s eyes flashed. “You know nothing,” she whispered.

“BECKY!”

Her hand twisted and Steve heard the man’s neck snap Becky dropped the body to the floor and stepped over it. “Search the papers,” she said calmly.

“Search the…Becky, he could have been useful!”

She whirled around, glaring at Steve. “’Zola’s whore,’” she repeated. “They always called me Zola’s whore.”

“Becky…”

“Search the papers.”

Steve didn’t object, getting to work. He looked up as there were footsteps and Natasha and Sam arrived.

“What took you?” Becky asked.

“There were more of them,” Natasha said. “We had to make sure they didn’t continue pursuing us. Unfortunately, that means none of them survived.” She went over and started looking through the papers as well.

After an hour, Natasha looked up. “Moved to Paris,” she announced.

Becky nodded and calmly walked back up the hall. Steve caught up with her. “Becky…”

“Don’t, Steve,” she said. “We’re going to Paris, and that’s the end of it.”

They didn’t say another word as they walked back to their hotel. They parted ways with Natasha and Sam outside the shop, pretending they didn’t know each other. Back at the hotel, Becky immediately collapsed on the bed.

Steve sat down next to her. “Are you okay?” he asked quietly.

She turned her head and faced him, eyes full of tears. “They called me a whore,” she whispered. “And they were right.”

“No,” Steve said. “No, they weren’t. It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t want to…you never wanted to.”

Her eyes closed and Steve could see her shaking. He lay down next to her and pulled her close. “It’s over,” he said. “It’s over and you weren’t to blame.”

“I want to talk to Sam,” she said quietly.

Steve nodded. “Okay,” he said. “I can call and ask him to come over…”

“It can wait until tomorrow,” she said. “I just...”

“I know.”


	5. The Soldier and the Nurse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Becky decides who she is and Steve asks an important question.

The next morning they were flying to Paris. Steve and Natasha were in the front of the plane, discussing the plan for Paris, while Sam and Becky sat at the back, talking over Becky’s problems.

“They called me Zola’s whore,” she said. “They all treated me like dirt…even when they didn’t call me that, they never called me by name…they made me forget my name...I don’t even know who I am, really. Steve told me, of course, but…I seemed to be so many people.”

“Can you elaborate on that?” Sam asked.

“Like…am I Becky the wife? Becky the nurse? Becky the soldier? Am I the Winter Soldier or Zola’s whore or a victim of HYDRA? Am I Steve’s girlfriend, or his fiancée, or his child, or his caretaker, or just his friend? Am I an assassin or a spy or just a woman on vacation? Everyone keeps telling me all of these things, but…I can’t figure out who I am now.”

“Who do you want to be?” Sam asked.

Becky was confused. “What?”

“You say that people tell you who you are…but you can’t let yourself be defined by other people. Not HYDRA, not SHIELD, not Steve. So who do you want to be?”

Becky was quiet for a moment. “I don’t know yet,” she finally answered. “I’m still trying to come to terms with what’s happened…still trying to figure out what it was that destroyed me.” She fell silent again. “But…I know I love Steve. And I know I want to do something useful. Help people. Make up for everything I did…I know it wasn’t my fault, but I still feel like I should make amends.”

“Well, Steve won’t let you leave him any time soon,” Sam said. “As to being useful…what do you like doing?”

“I don’t remember,” she said. “I was a nurse before…it was to take care of Steve, but I think I enjoyed it…maybe I could go back to nursing school. Update my knowledge, renew my license…go back to that.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” Sam said. “Get a job, get on with your life…” He hesitated. “As soon as you want to go home.”

Becky stared out the window. “I don’t know,” she said. “I feel like we keep chasing SHEBA…but we haven’t found anything.” She was quiet for a second. “Maybe we should just give up. Stop searching, forget about it…go home and live normally.”

“Would that make you happy?”

She shook her head. “I’m never going to be happy,” she said. “Even if we find it, I don’t think it’s going to make me happy.” Her eyes were unfocused. “You know, it’s funny…in the last seventy years, I’ve killed people. I’ve hurt so many…I’ve destroyed myself. But the only thing I still feel guilty for is losing Steve’s ring.”

“And why do you think that is?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Maybe it’s because it happened before I was the Winter Soldier…or maybe it’s because I know how much it was worth.”

Sam was silent, and she continued. “It was his mother’s…and her mother’s before that, and her mother’s before that. Same with Steve’s, actually. They were a set, passed down through generations of his family, utterly unique in the world, specially carved in Ireland, made in such a way that they’re magnetized to each other but nothing else…I know it sounds impossible, but they were. He told me…he told me that those rings were made for the purest of lovers and that once you put them on, you could never be separated from your love again.” She laughed. “That was a lot of bullshit.”

“I don’t know,” Sam said. “Even seventy years later, you came back to him. You did find each other again.”

She nodded. “I guess we did,” she said. “But I still feel awful. That ring was worth more than anything else Mrs. Rogers ever had, but she never pawned it when times were rough, never even thought about it, because she wanted him to be able to give it to me. Same with Steve’s...his father’s. I don’t know where it is now, but I’m sure he still has it somewhere…I mean, they’re worth more as a set, but even so…”

“He wasn’t worried about the ring. He was worried about the person wearing it.”

Her eyes were bright with unshed tears. “I want to go home,” she said. “I want to go back to Brooklyn, and our crappy little apartment with cheap stew and a bit of bread and our rings where they belong…I want this to be over.”

Sam nodded. “Well, if you want to stop, just say so.”

“We’ll go to Paris,” she said. “And if we don’t find anything more, we’ll go home.”

*

Steve glanced back at Becky and Natasha gave him a look.

“You know she’s not the same as she was.”

“I know.”

“Neither are you.”

“I know.”

“It’s not going to be easy.”

“I know.”

“If you’re going to do this, it has to be as she is, not as you remember.”

“I know.”

“Do you know what you’re doing?”

“Yes.”

Natasha nodded. “Okay.”

Steve took a deep breath. “I just…if I wait until we go back to New York, it may not ever happen.”

“And if she says no…”

“It’s okay.” He breathed again. “I’m going to ask as soon as I can get her alone.”

“No fanfare?”

“No. Just us.”

“Okay.”

“And…maybe if she says yes, it will help us both.”

“Maybe. But you can’t just expect to fix it right away.”

“I don’t.”

“Good.” Natasha looked him right in the eyes. “Because if you’re going to marry that girl, Steven Grant Rogers, you’d better know how to take care of her.”

*

Becky seemed a bit better as they got to the latest in the string of hotel rooms. Steve was glad she was feeling better. It would make things easier.

She didn’t say what she and Sam had talked about and Steve didn’t ask. But once they were settled in, Steve took a breath.

“Becky?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you…would you marry me?”

She was puzzled. “You already asked me that.”

Steve shook his head. “No,” he said. “We’re not…we’re not the same as we were then. Back then, Steve the artist was engaged to Becky the nurse.” He hesitated. “But now…we’re not those people anymore.” He dropped to his knees. “Now, I, Captain America, am asking you, Becky the soldier, to marry me…just as you are.”

She looked at him for a moment before dropping to her knees as well. “You’re right,” she said. “We’re not who we once were.” She reached out and took his hand. “But I’m not even Becky the soldier now. I…I was just telling Sam, I’d like to be Becky the nurse again.”

Steve nodded. “Well, then, Becky the nurse…or whoever you want to be…will you marry me? When this is over?”

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I want to marry you…if…if you’re sure you want me…I mean…I know I can’t be the easiest person to live with…and I know…I know you didn’t want me to kill that man yesterday but…”

“I know.” He pulled her into a tight hug. “I know why you did…Hell, I probably would have after he’d answered questions. But…well, that doesn’t matter. We just need to find the next bunch of papers then we can move on.”

Becky hesitated. “I…I also told Sam…if we don’t find anything here…we might as well go home.” She leaned on Steve’s shoulder. “I mean…it’s always going to be there, at the back of my mind. It’s never going to stop hurting. Even if we find SHEBA, I’m never going to be well again. So…so we may as well go home.”

He nodded. “Okay…okay, we’ll go search the base tomorrow. And if we don’t find anything besides a location, we’ll stop.”

“Thank you, Steve. For putting up with this search for so long.”

“I’m not putting up with anything,” Steve said. “I’m doing what needs to be done to help my girl.”

*

Early the next morning, they headed straight for the base. Sam and Natasha had decided to follow from a distance to watch for pursuers. They walked quickly, eager to be done with their quest. After all, nowhere else had held any information, and it was highly unlikely that this time would be any different

Becky led Steve through the streets, into an alley, and then pushed aside a wall of bricks with her metal hand. They continued into the newly revealed alleyway, purposefully this time. There was no one around, and there was no point in hiding.

They found a sliding door in a wall, one that was out of place, and Steve pushed it open, finding a room that was better-lit than the others had been, though the papers were still old and ratty.

“Well, let’s hope there’s something,” Steve said. He stepped inside—

The door slammed shut between him and Becky. “STEVE!” she screamed, throwing herself at the door.

He turned back. “BECKY!”

She slammed on the door with her metal hand, but it didn’t even dent. She whirled around to see several dozen black-clad HYDRA agents come crawling out of the various buildings around them. She pulled out her gun and started firing.

“BECKY!” There was a hissing noise all around. Steve looked around the room and saw a thick fog creeping from small holes in the wall. “BECKY!”

He was starting to feel dizzy. The super-serum meant he could hold his breath longer than most people, but he wouldn’t be able to stay standing forever, especially since he had already inhaled the gas. He closed his eyes and stopped breathing.

Becky kept pounding on the door, shooting down any HYDRA agent who tried to come at her. “STEVE! STEVE, HOLD ON!”

Several of the agents rushed her. She tried to fight them off, but they overwhelmed her, pushing her to the ground. She kept struggling, kept fighting, but then one of them managed to say the words to her.

“Operation SHEBA is go.”


	6. SHEBA

Steve sat straight up in bed. He had just had the most bizarre and horrible nightmare, and his heart was still pounding.

His wife stirred sleepily beside him. “Steve?” Becky murmured. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah,” he said, shaking his head. “Yeah, just a nightmare.” He glanced at the clock. Five o’clock. Too early to get up, too late to go back to sleep.

Becky rolled over and looked at him in concern. He smiled reassuringly at her. “Don’t you worry about it,” he said. “It happens…you know that.” His eyes lingered on her metal arm, the arm Howard had made for her after they’d found her.

She nodded. “I know,” she said. “It never really stops hurting.” She sat up beside him and snuggled close. “Want to tell me about it?”

Steve leaned back, running his fingers through Becky’s hair. “I dreamed that I went down in that plane,” he began, remembering how he had barely managed to jump clear before it hit the water. He’d had to swim for several hours before he was finally picked up, but he had survived. “And that I was frozen for years…and that SHIELD didn’t find you. I dreamed that I woke up in the future, with all sorts of strange new things. There was still SHIELD …and I still worked for them. And then…” His brow furrowed in concentration. “I found you. But you had been found by HYDRA and brainwashed into being their attack dog. And I managed to get you to be good again…and then we were searching for something…something odd. But I don’t remember what it was now.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Becky said. “It was just a nightmare…just a horrible nightmare. You’re safe, in 1951, and I’m here, and I love you. And that’s what matters, okay?”

“Okay,” he said. He glanced at the clock again. “I suppose we ought to get up…no point going back to sleep for an hour.”

“Mmm,” she said. “No…but no real point getting up. Agent Carter hasn’t called us in yet…” She ran a finger down Steve’s chest. “And we do have an hour…”

Steve smiled. “Well,” he said. “If you insist…”

He leaned in to kiss her briefly before gently turning her over on her back. She smiled gently and leaned her head back, allowing him to kiss at her neck for a few minutes. She ran her metal hand through his hair, metal that could touch and feel and move as well as flesh, and she was thankful Howard had managed that. His hands moved over her body, feeling her through the thin nightgown she wore. Maybe this time…

They hadn’t married until three years after the war had ended. Becky hadn’t even been found until 1946, and it was two years before she had recovered and was ready to be his wife. But now she was, and that was what mattered. Of course, Steve was eager to get their family started, and three years of marriage without success was a bit discouraging, but after a full examination, the doctors had told him that the serum in Becky’s veins was similar to his, and had extended all aspects of her life indefinitely. They had time. They had plenty of time.

Her right hand moved over his back. She wore her wedding ring on that hand because it was impossible to fit over the left hand. Steve had considered having one custom-made for her, but she had refused, saying that having a simple gold ring on her right hand was just as special as having…

That wasn’t the right ring. Steve pulled back and grabbed her hand, staring. That was the silver ring, the one that had belonged to his mother. The one that Becky had lost when she fell. Steve remembered her losing it, remembered her begging Howard to keep searching the mountains for it for months. So how had she gotten it back now?

“Becky…”

“What is it?”

“Where did you get this?”

She looked at her hand. “It’s…it’s the ring you gave me…”

“It was lost. When you fell, it was lost!” He looked around. The room was bright, cheery, perfectly clean…a little too perfect. He had never been a neat person, and Becky didn’t clean up after him. And yet everything was completely spotless. He glanced at the bed, all white sheets and four-posted and perfectly adjusted to his preference…He looked down at Becky, her hair cut to her shoulders, not tangled at all in spite of having just woken up, her face pristine as if she had put makeup on before waking…

It was too perfect.

“Becky, stop.”

She pulled back, looking confused. “Steve? What’s wrong?”

“Everything.” He got up off the bed and looked around. “Everything’s wrong…look at this place. Look at us…it’s too neat…too sterile, isn’t it?”

She looked confused. “I…I suppose it’s a bit…” She sat straight up. “Steve, in that dream…what were we looking for?”

“I…why?”

“Because I dreamed as well.” She stared into space. “I dreamed that there was a word…a mission…something that had to do with the two of us…it was…it was…”

“SHEBA.”

Their bedroom door opened and a man wearing black stepped in, followed by several guards. “So you’ve finally gotten there,” he said as Becky hastily pulled the sheets over her body and Steve instantly took a defensive stance.

“Who are you?” Steve asked. “What are you doing here?”

“I am merely here to tell you what you want to know,” the man said. “You were looking for SHEBA…so we decided to simply let you experience it.”

“Who are you?” Becky snapped.

“You can just call me Smith,” the man said. “Not my real name, of course, but that’s hardly important. And I am here to tell you what SHEBA was…you might want to sit down, Captain Rogers. It’s just a basic hypnosis and you’ll shake it off soon, but…well, there could be side-effects.”

Steve glared and didn’t move. “Tell me what’s going on!” he demanded.

“Sit down, Captain. Your wife is getting cold.”

The dream he had been having clawed its way to the surface. No, not a dream. Reality. “She isn’t my wife,” Steve said. “Not yet.”

“Have it your way,” Smith sighed. “But rest assured, I don’t mean to hurt you.”

“What is SHEBA?” Becky asked.

“SHEBA—Super Human Enhanced Breeding Arrangements,” Smith said. “A plan to create the finest army in the world—an army that could destroy countries without tiring. It wasn’t the first idea, of course, but after Dr. Erskine was killed and Dr. Zola’s notes were destroyed, there weren’t many ways to recreate the serums. But we did have the right combination—the perfect man and the perfect woman. Both engineered for strength and speed and fast healing. And the fact that they were already engaged—well, it was a bit too good to pass up.”

“So your plan was to use us?” Becky demanded. This was what they were looking for, and they were getting it. She could see Steve coiled, ready to strike, but holding back so they would have all the information. “To take our bodies and make us have children to be raised as killers?”

“That was the initial idea,” Smith admitted. “Though we weren’t entirely certain how it would come out, with two different formulas being combined. But it was worth a try. And don’t think it would have been mindless, passionless breeding. We would have given you this—life as it was meant to be, as you wanted it. A nice house and good jobs and plenty of food and money—we would have even simulated your friends and colleagues…unless we needed you elsewhere, of course. But you know how quickly we can change your memories, Nurse Barnes. Unfortunately, it was not to be.”

“Because you couldn’t find me,” Steve said. “You couldn’t get to Captain America. So you didn’t have the perfect mate for her.” He could see Becky shaking, but he wasn’t sure if it was from anger or fear. “So you just used her as a weapon, or to take your own pleasure from.”

“I didn’t do that,” Smith said. “Though I know others did…Zola’s whore, after all. The Mother of the 21st Century…well, she was useful to us for many reasons.”

“So now what?” Steve asked. “You’re going to do it again? Wipe our memories, use whatever simulations you have, wait until you get results?”

“Of course,” Smith said. “And once we get those results, you’ll go back to being attack dogs.”

Steve glanced down at Becky. She looked at him, mascara and eyeliner and lipstick and perfection, and nodded once.

“Sorry,” Steve said. “But we don’t work for you.”

She leaped up. One hit was enough to knock Smith to the ground and then they were scrambling to fight off the rest of the guards, who had started shooting the moment Becky was on her feet. They spent the next few minutes dodging and hitting. Steve ducked down and moved forward, getting too close for the guns to be effective. Becky did the same, forcing close combat where their superior strength quickly overwhelmed the agents.

Steve looked to Becky. “Can you fight in a nightdress?”

Becky rolled her eyes. “I kicked Billy Grange from Brooklyn to Manhattan in a dress before,” she pointed out. “Let’s just get out of here!” She grabbed Steve’s hand and pulled him out the door.

“I wonder where they found the ring, though,” Steve said as they dashed through pristine 50s hallway.

“Probably with me,” she said. “Just didn’t realize that you would remember it being gone.”

“Pretty hard to forget when your mom’s ring gets lost in the Alps.” He glanced through a window. “They’ve made a pretty good simulation. Don’t know where the exit is.”

“We’re being monitored,” Becky said. She looked around wildly. “If this is our house, where the fuck is my gun?”

“But it isn’t our house,” Steve argued. “It’s the house they thought we’d want…the perfect picture of idyllic post-war America.”

“No, it’s the house they thought you’d want,” she said. “But they don’t know you. They know me in and out, and they know that I would never live anywhere I didn’t have a weapon.”

“Um…hall closet?” Steve guessed.

Becky ran there and threw it open. Sure enough, her gun was there, the same rapid-fire handgun she always used now. She picked it up and weighed it. “Loaded,” she said. “Either they want a fight or they didn’t think we’d break out of their mind-control this quickly.”

“Right,” Steve said. “And if they have that, somewhere there must be…” He looked around and spotted it above the mantelpiece. “Got it!” He grabbed the shield and put it on his arm. “Real thing…they must have searched our room.”

“Of course they did,” Becky said. “Who knows how long we’ve been here? They’d want to make everything as realistic as possible.”

“Right,” Steve said. He looked through a window, but didn’t see any immediate threats. “Go through the picture window.” 

They scrambled through the window and out to the street . Sure enough, once outside the perfect little home they had been put into, it was very clear that they weren’t in any sort of realistic world. The street looked nice, clean, quiet…but completely fake, like one of the movie sets Steve had been on in the war.

“Idiots,” he muttered. “As if we would ever go anywhere that wasn’t at least as filthy as Brooklyn.”

“As if we would ever live anywhere that wasn’t Brooklyn at all,” Becky said. She ran toward the end of the street, where there was a brick wall. “Let’s see…plaster cast!” She tore through it with her metal arm easily and she and Steve bounded into a wide, open room, where at least thirty HYDRA agents were waiting.

“Very good,” one said. “They finally made it.”

“So you do want to fight us,” Steve said. “The two best soldiers in the world and you think you can take us down?”

“Yes,” the agent said. “And we’re not going to bother with SHEBA this time. It was a good plan fifty years ago, but now…now it’s time that Captain America died.”

“FUCK YOU!” Becky screamed, aiming her gun.

The man hit the ground before Steve even registered that she had pulled the trigger. Then they were fighting, men coming at them from all sides. Several bullets hit them, but none in lethal places. Steve moved around Becky, using his shield to cover them both while she shot at the HYDRA agent, aiming at the weakest spots in their armor.

“Just like old times,” Becky called over the cacophony.

“I dunno,” Steve said. “Didn’t you used to be taller than me?”

“Didn’t you used to be a gentleman?” she snarked back. “And where the hell is our back up?”

“I’m guessing they have their own problems!” Steve bashed an agent in the head with his shield. “Just keep going!”


	7. Nothing Unusual

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the team escapes HYDRA.

Natasha groaned and rolled over. She seemed to be on a stone cold floor with her hands and feet tied. A position she was unfortunately all too used to being in. She opened her eyes, but was only met with darkness

She racked her brain quickly, trying to remember what had happened. She and Sam had been following Steve and Becky. They had gone into an alleyway…

Then there had been HYDRA agents all around. She and Sam had fought, and fought well, but they were soon overwhelmed by sheer numbers. After that, she remembered nothing.

Clearly, they had all gotten captured. And wasn’t that just fantastic, after months and months of searching, to be caught now?

Her eyes adjusted to the dark and she could tell that she was alone in a very small cell. She took a few deep breaths before rolling over and kicking at one of the walls. After several minutes of this, she heard an answering thump from the other side.

“Sam?” she called.

“Nat?” He sounded relieved. “Nat, what happened?”

“HYDRA,” she said. “Are you tied up?”

“Yeah,” Sam answered. “How do we get out of this one?”

“Stay calm,” Natasha said. She started pulling her wrists apart, straining in the hopes of breaking the rope. “It’s only hemp rope. With enough time and strength, I should be able to break out of it.”

“Then what? Can you pull a key to these cells out of thin air?”

“Sam. I’m a top Russian assassin and SHIELD agent. I can get out of any cell given enough time.”

“We may not have enough time!” Sam snapped. “We don’t know where Steve and Becky are and they could be dead before we reach them!”

“Well, then, you start breaking out, too,” Natasha snapped.

*

They were winning. Becky knew they were winning, that they could still get out of this. She was sure of that.

Then Steve cried out fell, his left knee giving out from under him.

Becky couldn’t turn. She had to keep fighting, even though she heard him scream. “Steve!”

“I’ll be okay!” he said. Even from the ground, he was still fighting. “Keep fighting!”

She did so, hitting with fists and gun, Steve doing his best to keep going from the floor.

Then the building exploded into flame.

*

Natasha grunted and strained, and finally her wrists slipped free from the rope. She moved quickly, leaning over and untying her feet, before calmly getting up and going to study the lock on the door. A quick search of her pockets revealed that she still had her lockpick kit that must have been missed when HYDRA took her guns, though they had found her garrote wire. She worked quietly, moving the pins in the way she knew would open the door. A minute later, she opened the cell and went to the next one.

The next door opened without too much trouble and she went to Sam and untied him quickly. “Come on,” she hissed. “We need to find the others.”

Sam nodded and they moved down the hall, on alert for any HYDRA agents and sorely missing their weapons. 

They found a staircase and went up it, still looking left and right, ready to fight with their bare hands if necessary. “Any idea where we are?” Sam whispered.

“Not a clue,” Natasha answered. “Just keep…”

A sudden alarm went off and Natasha swore. “Back!” she ordered, but before they could go back down the stairs, the door above the stairway slammed and locked. “Or forward!” she said, grabbing Sam’s hand and pulling him down the hall.

They ran around corners, ducking into doorways as HYDRA agents started running past them, all towards the center of the building.

“I think that’ll be Cap and Becky,” Steve said.

“Probably,” Natasha agreed. “But we need weapons before we’ll be of any use to them!” She pulled Sam in the opposite direction of the HYDRA agents. They searched several rooms before Natasha spotted their assets. “Here!” She ran inside and retrieved her gun and knife, tossing another gun to Sam. “Now come on!”

They had just started down the hall when they heard the alert. “Intruder alert! Prisoners escaped and armed! Activating self-destruct!”

Sam and Natasha looked at each other in shock before Natasha turned and pulled Sam towards a window.

“But…” Sam started to object.

“They’ll find a way out!” Natasha snapped, and then she pulled him through and down onto the grass. “Run!”

*

They didn’t know how it had happened. All they knew as that the room was filling with smoke and there were explosions starting—explosions just like those they had seen from Schmidt. Becky marveled at it for a moment, realizing that they hadn’t updated the detonators since the 1940s. That meant the charges were probably defective, but they were going to suffocate soon. Most of the HYDRA agents were dead, and the few that were left were distracted by the smoke. Becky shot them down quickly before the roof started to fall in.

She turned to Steve. “Get up!” she ordered. “We have to go!”

He pulled himself to his feet, feeling weaker than he had in a very long time. Becky wound an arm around his waist and he leaned on her. They hobbled down the hall, and wasn’t this familiar, struggling to find a way out of a building that was quickly falling apart around them.

But this time, it was her job to save him.

Another explosion and Steve collapsed, a piece of debris hitting him in the temple. “No!” Becky said. “No, you have to get up!”

He didn’t move and she swore quietly. “Steve! STEVE!”

No answer. Becky took a deep breath and then bent down and picked him up, hoisting him over her left shoulder, her metal arm keeping him secure. She dropped her gun and picked up Steve’s shield in her right hand before continuing to walk.

More debris fell, enough that a sliver of light finally shone through the ruins. She struggled toward it, avoiding the pieces of the building falling toward her, using the shield to keep the worst of them away. Finally, finally she got to the opening. She used Steve’s shield to knock away more of the crumbling roof before climbing out and dragging Steve up after her. Once outside, she lifted him and the shield once more.

After that, it was easier. They seemed to be far outside the city, and Becky walked away from the exploding base behind them, carrying Steve like a sack of potatoes. She only hoped he would wake up again.  
She walked through the fields for a few minutes before she spotted movement in the distance. She headed toward it and found Sam and Natasha, both looking a bit beat up but not too bad. 

“Becky!” Natasha called, hurrying over. “What happened?”

Becky glanced at the glow of red behind them. “Nothing unusual,” she said. “Now let’s find a safe place so I can take care of Steve.”

“Are you sure—?”

“I was a nurse for nearly ten years,” Becky snapped. “Two of those were on a battlefield. I think I know what I’m doing.”

Natasha nodded. “I can help,” she offered.

“Then give me a knife,” Becky commanded. “And hold him down.”

Natasha obeyed and Becky went to work immediately. Familiar, steady work, made easier by the fact that Steve’s body would heal itself faster than anyone else’s. As she used the knife to dig a bullet out of his leg, she smiled.

Because this right here was her place. Caring for Steve was what she was meant to do.

She was a nurse. And that was good enough.


	8. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's over.

_One month later._

Steve came into the apartment, his arms full of paper grocery bags. Becky looked up from her book and smiled. “Got it all?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Steve said. “How’s the homework coming?”

She shrugged. “There’s a lot more to it than there used to be,” she admitted. “But it’s coming pretty well.”

“Good.” Steve started putting away the groceries. “Tony sent a message, by the way. Wants us to go to the tower for dinner one of these days.”

Becky groaned. “Aren’t Tony’s dinners mostly press events?”

“Well, yes,” Steve said. He looked at her seriously. “We don’t have to go if you’re not ready.”

She watched him pensively for a moment. Then she looked back at the heavy medical textbook she was studying, at the little silver ring on her right hand, at the neat but used little kitchen they loved so well. “It’s a pretty name, Rebecca,” she finally said.

Steve sat down across from her, confused at the sudden change of subject. “I’ve always thought so,” he said. “But old habits, you know?”

“I know,” she said. “And I wouldn’t want you to stop calling me Becky. But…I think the rest of the world should call me by my proper name.”

Steve nodded. “Okay.”

“And I think the rest of the world should know who Rebecca is.”

“Okay.”

“So tell Tony we accept,” she finished. She glanced at her ring again. “And tell him that we have an announcement to make.”

Steve smiled. “Will do.” He leaned across the little table and kissed her gently. “I love you, Rebecca Jane Barnes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's the end! Thank you all for reading.
> 
> As you probably noticed, this is the first part of what will be a larger series. Unfortunately, due to my personal life, the series will have fairly irregular updates. So sorry for those who are eager for more (I'm assuming at least one of you is), but I will do my best to keep up.
> 
> Thanks.


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